


Lay Your Sorrow On Me

by Tonight_At_Noon



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Depressing, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Love Letters, M/M, Please read and enjoy, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, but for all you morbid folk like me, guys this is seriously sad and i'm sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-27 05:49:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20040931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tonight_At_Noon/pseuds/Tonight_At_Noon
Summary: Bucky and Darcy are gone, but Steve, mourning their loss, finds the letters they wrote to each other during their year apart and uses them to keep their memories alive.





	Lay Your Sorrow On Me

**.**

_when my time comes around_

_lay me gently in the cold dark earth_

_no grave can hold my body down_

_i'll crawl home to her_

Hozier | Work Song

**.**

The house is almost empty. Standing in the doorway, he swears he can see their ghosts running around the foyer. He can hear their voices, either shouting or laughing - it was always one or the other - but he can't be sure which. Hundreds of overheard conversations slip through his mind. They meld together, not allowing him time to grasp at just one. It's an incoherent shouting in his ears, and it hits him, square in the chest, nearly knocking him backwards onto the porch. Those conversations, those moments of voyeurism, they're all he has left of them. He has been so busy sorting through everything - fixing up the house, putting their lives into boxes, comforting others - that he forgot what he was actually doing. Saying goodbye.

He isn't ready for that. Not yet. It's come too soon.

His throat tightens, like his airway can't take the realisation and is clenching in disbelief. In anger that this is happening. That he is being forced to go through this. His best friends, gone in a flash of rain on a dark street. Suffering in the upside down car as they sprawled out into the road. Managing to get out of their seatbelts, but not out of the car, they held each other, their blood and tears and love for one another mixing, pouring, until there was nothing separating them. Until there was nothing left. They were found wrapped in each other's arms.

They made the street run red with blood.

He knows, because he's buddies with the first responder who found them. He's friends with a lot of people, which is hard, because everyone heard about the tragedy. Nobody in town has been able to look him in the eye since it happened. And all he needs right now is someone to look at him and tell him everything will be okay. He knows it won't be okay. Not for a long, long time. Not ever. But hearing that one day it won't _hurt_ so much would be lifesaving.

"Was that the last box? Steve?"

Steve nearly jumps out of his skin - he feels his bones straining, his insides squirming. Beside him, Sam holds the keys to the his truck. Yesterday they handed back the U-Haul they rented for this clear out job. There isn't enough stuff left inside their home to warrant the cost. Everything else fits in the bed of Sam's pickup. His dark eyes are red-rimmed as he waits for a response.

"No," Steve says once he's found his voice. It's scratchy - almost incoherent - but it's there. At least it's there. "A couple more upstairs. I'll grab it, then we can head to the storage place."

Sam nods, and Steve enters the house for what horribly feels like the last time, walking directly from the doorway to the staircase, his eyes avoiding the blank spaces on the walls. Each step drags him further and further down. Gravity works different here. It works different with grief, if that's what he's feeling. He isn't sure. All he knows is it feels disgusting. Like a layer of grime he can't wash away no matter how much he tries. On the landing, he spots the boxes sitting neatly on top of one another in the room to the right. The office, which never was used as an office. Both of them worked downstairs in the living room. Spread out all over the place, their papers mixing. Always close enough to touch. It turned into more of a storage room. The boxes greet him without any hint of sadness. Steve hates them for their lack of understanding. Their ignorance. He envies them.

Heavy, reluctant footfalls take him into the room. The box on top has sprung open since he closed it, and he approaches it, ready to seal it shut again, when the object at the top catches his stinging eyes. He had been so busy trying to keep it together as he packed away the lives of his friends that he didn't bother paying attention to what he was tossing in there. But he's paying attention now. Reaching inside, he pulls out an envelope. A name is emblazoned on the crinkled surface. Darcy Lewis. He almost thinks nothing of it, almost puts it away because looking at her name scrawled in that handwriting makes him want to curl into a ball, but then he spots the address underneath her name. West Virginia. Steve didn't know Darcy when she lived in West Virginia. He knew of her. But that's different.

He turns the envelope over, consumed suddenly by a sick curiosity. Sure enough, the return address is New York. The city where Steve eventually met Darcy after knowing her for ages. Bucky's name stares at him and for a second, the smallest second, Steve forgets. He forgets the pain of the past month. Forgets the hollowness in his soul. Bucky kept the girl to himself for so long. Hid her away in West Virginia where none of his old friends could corrupt her with embarrassing, unpleasant stories of the boy Bucky used to be. But then he looks up, the phantom of a smile just barely grazing his mouth, and his face falls as it all comes rushing back so forcefully he almost drops the envelope.

He doesn't drop it.

He opens it.

The envelope is giving. It's as if it wants Steve to keep going. The letter must have been from their year apart after Bucky graduated, abandoning Darcy in West Virginia while he returned home to Brooklyn. Steve remembers those long, painful months. Bucky had never been so pathetic. So lonely. The letters were what kept them both sane. Something Steve only learned about a few years ago when Darcy let it slip at dinner. Bucky had tried to get her stop, still so desperate to hide their relationship from prying eyes, but that only made her more excited to share. 

They wrote to each other once a week, sometimes more depending on their schedules. Between expensive phone calls and day-long in-person meetings between holidays, they counted on the letters. As he pulls out the page from the envelope, Steve peers into the box. A mountain of manila greets his pinpricked eyes. He blinks, and a droplet of water lands on the cardboard. Swiping at his face, Steve unfolds the paper in his hand and sucks in a sharp breath that burns his tired lungs. There is no guilt as he begins reading. No fear that he is invading a part of Darcy and Bucky's relationship that they did not want him to see. The ache in his chest, in his fingertips and nose and ankles, cancels everything else out as he sees Darcy's name written in Bucky's shaky handwriting.

_Darcy,_

_I didn't mean it. Well, no, I did, but I don't anymore. I was being stupid at graduation. You said I was being stupid, and now I agree with you, because I've never felt more stupid in my entire life. And that's including the time my buddy Steve and I did that thing where you put your tongue on a cold lamppost, like in _A Christmas Story_. Leaving you like that, saying what I said, was more stupid than almost getting frostbite on my tongue._

_Look, I know I don't deserve any forgiveness. You said you were in this for real, and I said I wasn't, but I was lying, I realise that now. I'm in this, Darcy. With you. For real. Please believe me. Wherever you are reading this, believe me. <strike>Your</strike> You're the best thing that's ever happened to me - don't tell Steve when you meet him - and I can't imagine a tomorrow without you. I can imagine it, but it hurts. A lot. I need to have you in my life. And not for any possessive reason. I need you because you're independent. Because you don't put up with anyone's shit, especially mine._

_Do you remember when I kissed you the first time? At the swimming centre after we'd broken in? I knew it then. That I wouldn't be strong enough to let you go. I thought breaking up with you at graduation was the strong thing to do. You still have a year in West Virginia, I've started this new job. Long distance never appealed to me, and I thought it didn't appeal to you either. I thought you'd want to experience life without me for a while. But fuck that. Fuck all of it. I'm in, Darcy Lewis. Please be in too._

_Love,_

_Bucky_

The page hangs limply in Steve's hand as he finishes reading.

Bucky and Darcy had broken up before he moved back from university. He knows it doesn't last, but how long did it take for Bucky to convince Darcy to forgive him? She must have forgiven him eventually, but how long after receiving this? Did she make him beg? He wouldn't be surprised - she had that boy wrapped neatly around her finger. He'd have captured the stars for her if she asked. He'd have done it even if she didn't ask. Steve tries searching his memories for the period directly after Bucky's graduation. After the split. Was he more morose? More irritable as he slowly, or quickly according to the letter's date stamp, awoke to the huge mistake he'd made?

Steve doesn't remember. And Christ that hurts. It forces another tear out, and it lands on the back of the letter. Steve lifts the page to wipe away the drop and sees a few places already spotted with dried marks. Had Darcy cried reading this too? Or, more likely, had Bucky cried writing it?

He's about to search inside the box for Darcy's response, it must be in there somewhere and he is prepared to dig around until he locates it, but Sam's voice halts his movement.

"Do you need help?" Sam asks, entering the room. He places a warm hand on Steve's shoulder and squeezes.

Steve is about to refuse the offer, but he's too tired to pretend he isn't falling apart, so he stands, gripping the box of letters and jerking his head towards the last box. Bending at the knees, Sam picks up the box and heads straight for the doorway. Steve starts to turn, his blood pumping furiously though his veins, and he decides something dangerous. Something bad. He's keeping this box. He will keep it and he will open every envelope inside. To keep them alive for just a little while longer. Because he's not ready for this part. For the final goodbye. They all said it would be the funeral, then it was supposed to be the memorial, then the first morning when they weren't there to fulfil the plans they'd made. He didn't say goodbye then, and he won't say it now.

Steve holds the box tightly and walks with Sam to the truck. He locks the door behind him, sneaking his spare key into his wallet. The landlord won't get it. The old man who only wanted a sale doesn't get to take it from him. Climbing in the truck, Steve lets Sam take one of his hands as they drive out of the neighbourhood, but he keeps the other on the box of secrets. Of memories - memories that will soon be his. 


End file.
